3 easy steps to follow through on New Year’s fitness goals

The arrival of a new year typically inspires us to set goals for the next 12 months. Objectives like dropping 20 pounds of body fat, improving your strength or starting a weekly running routine are a few popular choices.

The challenge is finding the optimal plan that will help you stay on track to reach the finish line.

Here is an easy-to-follow road map for your fitness journey that will steer clear of potholes and roadblocks that might have deterred you in the past.

Start small

Author of “Atomic Habits,” James Clear, recommends starting small. A common error is undertaking an initial goal that is too large. People experience success in the initial stages only to falter down the road.

Treat willpower as a muscle, accepting that it can and will fatigue. Starting an exercise program consisting of 20 minutes of strength training twice a week, as opposed to training for an hour three days a week, is more achievable.

In the former, the goal is to increase the duration of the training over a six-month period. Add five minutes or three sets of additional exercise every month.

Once you achieve 45 to 50 minutes of strength training twice a week consistently, your next step is to maintain it for six to eight weeks.

Consistency is a vital and frequently overlooked step. Once you accomplish that goal, you can consider adding a third day.

The goal is to establish a habit — habits change behaviors.

Things will go wrong

Think about the obstacles you have encountered in the past. Understand that life happens, so a key step is to create a plan for when these unexpected episodes crop up.

Things going wrong is part of the process, so you need to have a plan for when they do.

Have a 15-minute exercise routine you can perform at home that doesn’t require equipment and that will keep you on track for those days when unexpectedly working late or taking care of a sick child keeps you from getting to the gym.

This tactic piggybacks upon the previous step: consistency.

A simple routine of bodyweight lunges and pushups for 10 repetitions followed by side planks for 20 seconds for a total of four sets each goes a long way.

You want to avoid the emotional mindset of “Why bother if it’s not perfect” and stick to a rational approach of simply getting in some form of exercise.

Authors Chip and Dan Heath cite this is their book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard”: “The brain has two independent systems at work at all times. There is the emotional side, the part that is instinctive, that feels pain and pleasure. Second, there’s the rational side, also known as the reflective or conscious system.”

Like a baseball player, some days your goal should be to make contact with the ball and get on base. Taking only big swings for a home run tends to produce more strikeouts over the long run.

Recruit a buddy

Enlist someone as an accountability partner. Accountability ranks as one of the top needs in achieving goals.

January ranks high as a month when people are naturally motivated and inspired because of the clean slate mentality that comes with the new year.

Specifically, in a study conducted by the American Society of Training and Development, 65 percent of people were more likely to reach their goals when they commit to an accountability partner.

As time passes and motivation fades, it’s valuable to have someone help keep you on track. If you can’t find anyone, consider hiring a personal trainer. The job of a personal trainer is to recommend and instruct a program with appropriate exercise and guidance, but a large part of their job is also to keep participants accountable.

Doug Sheppard is a nationally certified personal trainer with 34 years of experience and owner of J&D Fitness Personal Training in Las Vegas.